As part of its annual meeting, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum identified barriers to trading in chemical products and suggested solutions for how the barriers can be overcome. The information comes from the Final Report published by APEC.

Barriers to trade primarily arise from:

Lack of uniform coordination between customs agencies and agencies that regulate chemicals when it comes to determining responsibility for assessments

Lack of uniform requirements for assessments across the entire spectrum – from comprehensive monitoring to self-declarations by importers

The delegates of the individual countries agreed upon the following measures:

To develop best-practice approaches for importers

To identify best-practice case studies

To request training on chemical imports from customs and supervisory agencies

To provide training capacity sufficient to support best-practice solutions

A useful tool to collect and supply information on GHS is the updated Web site, G.R.E.A.T.“ (GHS Reference Exchange and Tool). Since it was published in 2010, the site has garnered 146,000 hits.

APEC is an international organization that seeks to create a free-trade zone in the Pacific area. Its 21 members include Australia, Brunei, Chile, China, Indonesia, Japan, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zeeland, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam. These countries represent more than half of the world’s economic activity.

Thanks to our network, we are thoroughly familiar with import regulations and restrictions in the countries of the APEC zone. Please contact us at sds@kft.de.